2015 Eisner Award Nominations

The Eisner Awards, the Oscars for comics, is a staple for several decades of comic readers. This year’s award nominations are in, and the awards will be at the San Diego Comic Con on July 10th. This year’s awards sees a lot more superheros than we have seen in the past several, which have heavily reflected the renaissance that we have see from places like Image Comics and Oni. 2015 was a year where many superhero books strayed from the pack and did unique and interesting things, and that showed in nominations around Astro City, Hawkeye, Rocket Racoon, and Ms. Marvel, which is expected to win.

Many of the biggest surprises were what is missing. March is missing from the Reality Based Work, and both Dark Horse Presents and Vertigo Quarterly are absent from Best Anthology. Matt Kindt was snubbed by Writer/Artist and Outcast from Best New Series.

Best Writer has the most expected nominations, and we see a heavy round for Multiversity and expected nominations like Francesco Francavilla and Darwyn Cook for Best Cover Artist. The Best Continuing Series, which is sort of like the “Best Picture” award, was a little interesting in that we see both Bandette and The Walking Dead. Not that these are not both great series, but they did not get the rounds of applause as they had normally.

Comic superstars like Jason Aaron, Grant Morrison, Kelly Sue Deconnick, G. Willow Wilson, Brian K Vaught, Fiona Staples, and Robert Kirkman are all well represented. Vertigo also has very few nominations, which are mainly just for Astro City and Sandman: Overture.

Eisner Awards Nominations 2015

Best Short Story

“Beginning’s End,” by Rina Ayuyang, muthamagazine.com
“Corpse on the Imjin!” by Peter Kuper, in Masterful Marks: Cartoonists Who Changed the World (Simon & Schuster)
“Rule Number One,” by Lee Bermejo, in Batman Black and White #3 (DC)
“The Sound of One Hand Clapping,” by Max Landis & Jock, in Adventures of Superman #14 (DC)
“When the Darkness Presses,” by Emily Carroll, http://emcarroll.com/comics/darkness/ (link is external)

Best Comics-Related Book

Comics Through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas (4 vols.), edited by M. Keith Booker (ABC-CLIO)Creeping Death from Neptune: The Life and Comics of Basil Wolverton, by Greg Sadowski (Fantagraphics)Genius Animated: The Cartoon Art of Alex Toth, vol. 3, by Dean Mullaney & Bruce Canwell (IDW/LOAC)What Fools These Mortals Be: The Story of Puck, by Michael Alexander Kahn & Richard Samuel West (IDW/LOAC)75 Years of Marvel Comics: From the Golden Age to the Silver Screen, by Roy Thomas & Josh Baker (TASCHEN)

Best Scholarly/Academic Work

American Comics, Literary Theory, and Religion: The Superhero Afterlife, by A. David Lewis (Palgrave Macmillan)Considering Watchmen: Poetics, Property, Politics, by Andrew Hoberek (Rutgers University Press)Funnybooks: The Improbable Glories of the Best American Comic Books, by Michael Barrier (University of California Press)Graphic Details: Jewish Women’s Confessional Comics in Essays and Interviews, edited by Sarah Lightman (McFarland)The Origins of Comics: From William Hogarth to Winsor McCay, by Thierry Smolderen, tr. by Bart Beaty & Nick Nguyen (University Press of Mississippi)Wide Awake in Slumberland: Fantasy, Mass Culture, and Modernism in the Art of Winsor McCay, by Katherine Roeder (University Press of Mississippi)